I shall not dwell upon my thoughts during that long night of suspense. Of sleep I had none; nor could I banish from my ears for a single instant the groans and cries of the man thus cruelly punished for an hour of madness. When a truce fell, it was upon the coming of my Spanish servant at daybreak, who listened very civilly to my story and said that he would make it his business to visit the prisoner. He himself had known the Frenchman formerly, and there had been a certain camaraderie between them, it appeared, so that he was very much surprised to have the news, and went off immediately to succour his friend. At the same time, he advised me very earnestly to have nothing to do with it; and since I perceived that he was to be trusted in the matter, I left it to him and got back to my bed about six of the morning. When next I awoke it was two of the afternoon, and the Zero had returned to her moorings.
Now, had I been in any doubt about this, the cries and laughter which reached me from the great cavern would have set my mind at rest. I perceived that our fellows had returned and were celebrating the occasion with one of those bouts of drinking in which Black's men indulged whenever opportunity showed as much as an eyelid at an open door. Going out into the great cave, I discovered a veritable feast set out, tables spread, bottles opened, and all the emblems of orgie. Of the men there, two were newcomers and unknown to me; one, a fine figure of an American whom they called Jerry Carr; the other a veritable Viking, whose real name I believe was Kanokoff, but whom the crew dubbed "Can-o'-coffee," in the way that seamen have. Both these men were far gone in liquor when I entered the room, and I saw, to my sorrow, that even our trusty Jack had not been proof against the temptation of the keg. As for the others, their attitude was frankly hostile, and I had hardly set foot in the place when the brute, Red Roger, stood up like a huge gorilla and thrust a jug of wine into my face.
"Ho," says he, "the little fairy boy. Wal, I reckon I want to see him dance, and dance he shall, by thunder." And then, with a giant's insolence, he cried: "Here, you, drink and be d—— to you!" And he splashed my face with the wine.
I struck the man a heavy blow on the point of the chin, and he went down like a felled ox. It was hardly done when the newcomers and the nigger Sambo were on their legs and their knives flashing. But they were too far gone in drink to do me a real mischief, and while they rolled impotently on the floor, and their horrible oaths echoed in the cavern, I bade Jack-o'-Lantern follow me, and we went out to the Captain's room.
"Jack," said I, "that's no place for the Captain's friend. What has happened to you, Jack?"
He pulled himself together, blinking his queer eye, and groping for his memory. His talk had always been strange, and I found it unchanged.
"Why," says he, as though in apology, "a drop of good drink never did a seaman harm yet, though to be sure, sir, yon stuff would bite a piece out of a snake. I give you my duty, sir, and report that we're come aboard."
"Jack, Jack," said I, "and what would the Captain say if he heard talk like that? Set your legs down both together, man. You are not walking on a tightrope. That's better, Jack; and now tell me, what of the 'Leopard,' what have you done with him?"
He seemed to think about it, scratching his head and chewing upon a ridiculous cutty pipe he would never abandon, whatever the circumstances.
"Aye," says he at last, "a bad man, true, by thunder; a bad man, sir. So, you see, I just clapped a hitch about his tiller, d——n me if I didn't."
"You locked him up, Jack; do you fear him, then?"
He became very serious.
"I'll tell you this," he said with unwonted emphasis, "we're in a clove hitch with that there Frenchman as sure as you and me sail this ship together. Do ye mind Bell Fairweather that was sent by the Yankees to cut your throats aboard the Celsis? Why, yes, you do, says you, and here's another of 'em, least-wise, where our skipper's concerned. I don't trust that man, sir, no more than Thames mud. Give him a chain's length and we swing—by the Lord, we swing high. The Captain knows it, and me, his mate, knows it too. He'll get a cinch on us if he ever goes ashore, you lay to on that, sir."
And then he added, while a horrible smile stole over his patched face:
"But he ain't goin' ashore, mind me; he's as far from shore as from hell's alley, and a derned sight farther to be sure. You lay to on that, sir. Jack's the boy, says you, and so he is, by thunder. Captain trusts Jack, to be sure he do. Keep that in your head, sir; him as dies hard don't cry soft. I wouldn't give sawdust for no Frenchman's chances when the skipper comes back. Let him rip, says you, and the skipper's the man, be sure he is."
It was black talk and I shrank from it.
"But, Jack," said I, "you don't mean to say that the Captain will kill him?"
He evaded the question, and cleverely fell back with a generality.
"Jenny a Frenchman goes, we swing!" he harped as the liquor drove him back upon a maudlin stupor. "Well, where's the human nater in that? Skipper, he don't take no chantses, not he, by the Lord. So there you are, master, and that's the bilge in your gunpowder. We'll hear the skipper about it. You and me are the mates on this deck, and there'll be plenty to do with the fo'c'sle hands while there's rum in the cask. If you doubt it, listen to 'em now, sir. Did you ever hear such hell's music in all your life?"
Well, a seaman might have called it that, to be sure, and yet it had another meaning for me even while Jack was speaking. Mingled with the oaths and the curses which came to us from the great cavern was a voice I recognized for that of the "Leopard"; and I knew in a flash that the man had escaped from his prison and that the drunken hands had taken him. A moment later, Jack-o'-Lantern knew it also, and with a wild cry he swung about on his heel and rolled from the cavern.
"They'll skin him alive, by thunder!" he roared. I believed every word of it, and, lagging but an instant to see that my revolver was loaded, I followed him down the tunnel and came out at the water's edge.
CHAPTER XXI
THE PLUNGE
There were many thoughts in my head as I ran from the place; but chiefly this, that if the Frenchman should escape, the secret of the Caves of Vares would be known to all Europe within four-and-twenty hours, and all these pirates as surely doomed as though the ropes were already about their necks.
To this, reason answered that there could be no escape, either for the "Leopard" or the rest of us. We were shut down in those caverns beneath the mountain; the sea was the gate of our prison. So it must befall that either the brutes would kill their man, as they had threatened, or that we must kill them to save the life of one who would have betrayed Black and his ship. Never were two in such a quandary as Jack-o'-Lantern and I when we burst in upon the madman.
They had caught the mutineer—how I may never learn, but they had him surely; and there he lay in the midst of them, his face ashen pale, and the clothes half-torn from his back. Such a spectacle as he presented, with his flesh all scarred by the terrible branding-iron, and his eyes sunk in after long nights of suffering—such a spectacle, I say, should have moved even a brute to pity. But as well might a man have lifted his hands to the granite rocks as to these pirates, besotted with drink and aflame with the blood lust. No company of devils had been more pitiless as they threw their man down and drew their knives upon him. The horrid cry, "Flay him!" rang through the grotto as the roar of a savage animal; it was answered by a baying assent, as of hounds that have fallen upon their quarry. I saw that we had not a minute to lose, and, disregarding Jack's appeal, I drew my revolver, and fired point-blank at the drunkards.
Depict a cavern of the remote seas, with a roof of jagged rock, and the surging water for the best part of its floor; a group of men, knives drawn and sleeves rolled up, kneeling about a huddled figure, which cried to God in its terror. Let there be a glow of clear white light from